March 16, 2015

Craft beer continues to boom in the City of Vancouver and its surrounding areas. Nestled very conveniently just across the street from the excellent Bomber Brewing on Adanac Street, Off the Rail is the latest craft brewery to open in the East Vancouver (Hastings adjacent) neighbourhood of Grandview-Woodland.

Off the Rail is so new, in fact, they are still awaiting their full tasting lounge license and are only able to serve the limited amount of a single 12oz. glass or two 5oz. tasters (growler fills are good to go though) until being fully licensed.

For starters, the Lancaster Cream Ale (left) deliciously smooth, splendid tasting, and just the right amount of creamy. I thoroughly enjoyed this seasonal ale and all its rich flavours. As for the standards, the Raybuck Red Ale (right) had a nice, mild punch to it with a crisp aftertaste and overall flavour. It definitely had a healthy bite to it. I filled a growler with the Derailer Pale Ale and it was a fairly solid, standard all-around drinking pale ale.

OTR comes from brewers Steven Forsythe and Trigger Segal (both formerly of the Railway Club) featuring homegrown hops from Forsythe's family land in Mission.

Update: The seasonal smoked porter (above) had a bold, strong smokiness and rich flavour to it.

OTR is promising and should only grow, thrive, and evolve its beverages in the eastside beer neighbourhood.